Survival Handbook for Agents on the Run: 10 Tips We Learned from the Movies

Pop quiz: You've been set up. You can no longer trust those closest to you and you're on everyone's most wanted list. What do you do? What do you do?

If you're Evelyn Salt (Angelina Jolie), a top CIA agent who's accused of being a Russian spy, you run, of course. And while you're on the run, you need a very specific set of skills to be able to evade capture, prove your innocence and capture the real bad guys.

With 'Salt' opening this Friday, we decided to review a few other agent-on-the run films and pick up a few useful tips like what to keep (evidence, duh!) and what to ditch, like phones, credit cards and, when necessary, all your clothes.
Pop quiz: You've been set up. You can no longer trust those closest to you and you're on everyone's most wanted list. What do you do? What do you do?

If you're Evelyn Salt (Angelina Jolie), a top CIA agent who's accused of being a Russian spy, you run, of course. And while you're on the run, you need a very specific set of skills to be able to evade capture, prove your innocence and capture the real bad guys.

With 'Salt' opening this Friday, we decided to review a few other agent-on-the run films and pick up a few useful tips like what to keep (evidence, duh!) and what to ditch, like phones, credit cards and, when necessary, all your clothes.

WARNING: Many movie clips are unedited and NSFW.

1.MacGyver your way out of handcuffs with everyday objects
Should you end up being taken into custody and cuffed, simply get your hands on a pen or paperclip and jimmy open those puppies. Or, snag a pair of glasses, like imprisoned former DSS agent Wesley Snipes at minute 6:55 in this clip from 'U.S. Marshals.' He surreptitiously breaks off a piece of a prosecutor's glasses (at :19 in the clip) and hides them in his cast, until it's time to break out of his cuffs on a prisoner transport flight.

Watch Wesley Snipes break out of his cuffs in 'U.S. Marshals.'

2. Change your appearance (unless your name is Jason Bourne)
With your mug plastered all over the news, your face is a liability. You've got to disguise yourself, quick. Throw on a wig like Jolie does in 'Salt,' going from blonde to black hair, or go from bald to long-haired, like Snipes does in 'U.S. Marshals.' (Harrison Ford goes from bearded to clean-shaven in the 'Fugitive' clip below, at 8:40.) Makeup is also useful, but not necessary if you've got access to future technology like Tom Cruise in 'Minority Report,' who injects a compound that makes his face sag into that of a much older man. Note: If one of your names is Jason Bourne, disregard. You're such a bad-ass that even if you're identified, you can just fight your way out of any situation.

3.Injured? See the nearest vet
After you're winged in that big shootout or bloodied by a death-defying leap, you definitely can't go to a hospital. (Exception: Dr. Richard Kimble, see previous clip at the 6:40 mark.) Solution: Go to a vet instead. And by "go," we mean, "break in in the middle of the night and steal what you need," like Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) does in 'The Bourne Ultimatum' or John Connor (Nick Stahl) does in 'Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines.' Just try not to get locked in one of the big cages when the vet shows up unexpectedly.

Watch Matt Damon have a higher pain tolerance than you in 'The Bourne Ultimatum.'

4. Passing trains make great getaway vehicles
Stuck on a rooftop or a bridge? Need to make a quick getaway? Just wait for the next passing train below and you've got your ride -- one that will throw your hapless pursuers for a loop, unless they want to jump too. At minute 6:03 in this clip, check out Wesley Snipes' careful calculation in 'U.S Marshals' as he watches the squad cars gather below, a dogged Tommy Lee Jones in hot pursuit behind him, and a conveniently timed passenger train just one stop away.

Watch Snipes pull off an insane getaway in 'U.S. Marshals.'

5. Shanghai a stranger to help you
You need a place to hide out, but you definitely can't go home. And if you head to your best friend or a relative's house, you're just going to get them killed. What now? Why not convince a complete stranger to help you out, with a big wad of cash (which Franka Potente finds really hard to refuse in 'The Bourne Identity'), or at the point of a gun, if necessary. Bookish CIA analyst Robert Redford is forced to flee when his entire office is wiped out in 'Three Days of the Condor.' He dodges his would-be killers by kidnapping Faye Dunaway (at minute 1:37 in the trailer) and forcing her to take him to her place.

Watch the 'Three Days of the Condor' Trailer.

6. Steal a police radio
What separates Jason Bourne from a lot of previous spies? Wicked smarts and (shockingly) common sense. When he's cornered in an embassy in 'The Bourne Identity,' he keeps calm and he keeps his wits. After taking out a security guard, he doubles back and grabs the guy's earpiece and walkie, so he's able to hear the progress of the pursuit as it happens. Secret Service agent Pete Garrison (Michael Douglas) does the same thing when his fellow agents come to arrest him at his home in 'The Sentinel.' A few deft maneuvers and he's on the run, with a service radio in hand.

Watch Damon dismantle guards faster than you can blink in 'The Bourne Identity.'

7.Lose all your clothes -- they might be bugged
There's no point in running if everyone knows exactly where you are. Take ordinary guy Robert Clayton Dean (Will Smith) in 'Enemy of the State,' a lawyer who gets passed an incriminating tape and soon has hordes of scary government types tracking his every move. Good thing he crosses paths with tech wizard Brill (Gene Hackman, reprising his role from '70s classic 'The Conversation'), who alerts him to the fact that he's been bugged head to toe (about five minutes into this clip). To get completely debugged, Dean realizes he's got to take it all off, providing a middle-aged woman with an unexpected thrill. (We can only hope that this same situation pops up in 'Salt,' as it did in 'The Art of War,' when Wesley Snipes -- as a United Nations operative who's framed for an assassination -- orders a pretty female witness to strip because she's bugged.)

Watch Will Smith's life-or-death strip-show in 'Enemy of the State.'

8.Stray bodies have a way of disappearing, so get prints before they do
When you've just taken out an unknown assassin, you can hardly stay behind and explain the situation to the cops. But if you call your one friend you can trust to print the corpse, the body probably won't be there, if the conspiracy is as deep and cloudy as it is in 'The Sentinel.' Good thing Michael Douglas knows this and gets the dead guy's fingerprints (at minute 1:10 in the trailer, below) before he, too, disappears. It proves to be the clue he needs to break the entire frame-up.

Watch 'The Sentinel' Trailer.

9.Trust no one, not even the mailman
We've all seen enough movies to know that the one person you can trust is actually the person you absolutely cannot trust, as assassin Max von Sydow explains to Robert Redford in this scene from 'Three Days of the Condor.' But you also have to be on your guard from pretty much everyone. Even if you're hiding out with a stranger, do not answer the door. Do not accept any packages. And if the mailman doesn't have a working pen, definitely don't let him in while you get one that does, as this scene from 'Condor' demonstrates.

Watch Robert Redford go postal in 'Three Days of the Condor.'

10.Don't use your cell phone, credit card -- or your own eyeballs
Today, your every call or transaction can be tracked digitally (as we saw in the over-the-top but still scarily plausible surveillance scenes in 'Enemy of the State'), so you've got to ditch your cell phone and credit cards, ASAP. Running from the law is even harder in a future where your retinas are scanned everywhere you go, and where talking billboards address you -- Hello, Mr. Anderton! -- by name, like in 'Minority Report.' The radical solution: Get an illegal eyeball transplant, since your old eyes will tip off the authorities to your exact location. Unless the one place you need to go, Precrime headquarters, is somehow the one place where no alarms sound when you "log in" with your old eyes (at 4:44 in this clip). Of course, this just proves that the handiest thing an agent on the run can have is a lot of luck -- and a screenplay with a convenient plot hole or two.